Pop looking for improvement tonight against Caja Laboral

On the heels of a blowout loss to Cleveland Thursday night in Pittsburgh, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is looking for improvement in his team’s game tonight against visiting Spanish team Caja Laboral.

Playing with a depleted roster, the Spurs dropped a 106-80 loss to Cleveland in Pittsburgh for the second-worst preseason defeat in the 15-season Popovich coaching era. But the results of the game come with an asterisk as the Spurs played without Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan and Richard Jefferson in the game.

All will be back in the lineup tonight. But look for Popovich to continue tinkering with rotations and letting young players get most of the playing time against the Tiago Splitter’s old team.

“We just want to get better. That’s the goal with the preseason,” Popovich said. “We want to bring the new guys into the fold, evaluate new players and see who you like. It’s the same principles every game until you get to the last two and then you want to figure out a rotation.”

The Spurs will have two remaining preseason games after tonight — home games Monday against Oklahoma City and Thursday against Houston. That likely means that tonight will be the last game that Popovich will fully embrace utilizing his entire 17-man roster.

He also doesn’t expect his team will overlook Caja Laboral, which carried a lead into the fourth quarter before dropping a 110-105 loss at Memphis Thursday night.